Nationale Voorleesdagen

 

Im in shock at all the events in Holland! The dutch version of A Bit Lost, ‘Mama Kwijt’ won the Dutch Picture Book of the Year 2012 and as part of the Voorleesdagen (read aloud week) there are many amazing events across the country. It was awarded by CPNB, a read-for-fun/literacy non-profit equivalent to Booktrust or CBI. Each year they choose a book for its read-aloud qualities and on the 18th Jan they celebrated by hosting ‘reading breakfasts’ (complete with pancakes!) in libraries and schools across the country. Its the 9th year of this award you can read more about it here Im so proud of the book’s success in holland as im a huge fan of dutch design and dutch picture books

 

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Many celebrities were pictured taking part for the press including Princess Laurentien from the Dutch royal family and prime minister Mark Rutte (!) In the last photo there is even a real owl at the school!!!!

 

There was even a reading at Schipol Airport Library

 

There are puppet performances too. The second to last performance was by Ton Meijer in the oba library (the little girl in the picture is pretending she is a sleepy owl about to fall) and the last was by Pagetti jeungdtheatre

It was interesting to see how the story was adapted to performances and to see how each adapts it differently. One of the performances is of Oma Kwijt (I lost my granny!)

 

 
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theres even a Mama Kwijt song…(!!!)
 

 

I did some press events too, on thursday 19th I opened the amsterdam stock market!!!!!! i had drawn ‘99%’ on my t-shirt in black marker and unzipped my hoodie right before i gonged (!) 🙂
 

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At the moment Mama Kwijt is the best selling BOOK in the Netherlands #1 in the book chart (!!!) and also no.12 as there are 2 versions. The bookshops also got involved and there are amazing shop window displays as well as little hand-puppets and bags. 60,000 finger puppets were made by CPNB to be given away free with the books, we really tried to have the finger puppets made fair trade (thank you CPNB) but the cost and timescale sadly could not work out. Then 7 bookshops emailed me and clubbed together to make an order of the fair trade owls too..! Thank you to all the bookshops who supported this!! You can see some of them on sale below…
 

 

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This last few days in holland has been INCREDIBLE! im in total shock. To have my book at the centre of such wonderful events promoting literacy and reading for fun in public access libraries is all i could have ever wished for, i cant tell you how honoured i am. I was amazed by the thought, care and humour that went into these events and the quality of the other beautiful children’s books and events that I saw. The time and resources that go towards childrens events seem incredible to me, the Dutch certainly seem to be really focused on all the the good things. I have met amazing people in the last few days. Thanks to so much to everyone involved in this amazing project, in all the libraries, Gottmer and CPNB. Hartelijk bedankt!!

A Bit Lost: facebook page

I have recently been sent lots of lovely things via my facebook page
 
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This is from Siena’s first birthday party in the US. Its been made from pretzels, chocolate, marzipan and COOKIES!!! yummy! 
 
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This is Tallulah’s first birthday cake. Tallulah says “uh-oh” when she sees an owl. high five Tallulah! 🙂 happy birthday!!
 
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Un Peu Perdu being read in French. Thanks to the very nice Librarie M’lire in Laval.
watch it HERE >>
 
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This a hand-made puppet show in Korean!!!!!  eggi puongee!! is that tree made from toilet rolls or the end of a hoover? 🙂
 
if you would like to keep up to date with owl-cakes and owl-biscuits
 
By |2020-05-13T12:50:03+00:00September 10th, 2011|Tags: , , , , |1 Comment

Un poco perdido

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A Bit Lost is launched in Spanish! It is published with the AMAZING editoria milrazones. Have a look at their books ‘Learning without Dogmas: Secular Education for Co-existence’ (great!!!) Im so proud to have owl published by them. They are keen to support the fair trade projects also. For every copy of ‘Un poco perdido’ sold we are donating a euro to a project to build a library in Colombia. Im really happy to have met them, they sounds GREAT! Hopefully we can do exciting work in future. This window is in Liberia Gil bookstore in Santander. 

Check out Olivia and the Wild Thing wearing the t-shirts! 🙂 The owl rug can be found here
 
 
By |2020-05-13T12:50:03+00:00August 30th, 2011|Tags: , , , |4 Comments

Cambridgeshire Picture book of the year 2011

A Bit Lost won the Cambridgeshire READ IT AGAIN! Picture book of the year 2011!!!
It was voted by the children so Im particularly happy to get this award. Over 6,000 children read and voted for their favourite picture books. Im told the voting was very tight and A Bit Lost was up against some tough competition.. see the wonderful books that were also nominated here Thanks to everyone involved in this great event. It was organised by Richard Young and involved dozens of the libraries and schools all across Cambridgeshire. A really great idea to get children reading for fun and to give exposure to debut authors.
 
This is actually the 7th award A Bit Lost has now won in 4 countries (!!!) I just cant believe the response owl has had. The other awards are listed here
 
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By |2020-05-13T12:50:04+00:00July 15th, 2011|Tags: , , , |0 Comments

Marion Vannett Ridgway Award

Little Owl Lost has just won the first prize in the Marion Vannett Ridgway Award in the US! The Ridgway award is given in honour of the artist’s representative Marion Vannett Ridgway and is awarded to debut illustrators and authors.

Im so proud that owl has been recognised especially as widely as it has in so many countries. I really never expected anything like this. Thank You!!!!
Visit their website here to see the past winners.. theres some really amazing books in there, wonder bear in particular is one of my favourite books of recent years. 
 
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By |2020-05-13T12:50:04+00:00May 23rd, 2011|Tags: , , |0 Comments

Bisto Children’s Book of the Year 2011

A Bit Lost just won the Bisto Childrens Book of the Year yesterday AND the Eil??s Dillon Award for the best debut book. Its actually the first time in the history of the award that the same book has won both! Totally unbelievable!! (!!!!!)

as you can see from the video here… im totally speechless!!!! oops
What i meant to say is that im v v grateful to Borim Press and to Walker Books. Thank YOU!!!
Also i was on the TV this morning on TVAM here
 
On thursday 19th im going to do an event in EASONS at 6pm details here
 

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By |2020-05-13T12:50:04+00:00May 17th, 2011|Tags: , , |0 Comments

Glass Owls and Blue Manatees

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I just got sent these images from Blue Manatee Childrens bookstore in Ohio. They have made these amazing owls based on Little Owl Lost in Brazee St Studios  see more images on their facebook page here
They read the book and then made their own owl from fired glass. Apparently other glass studios are also doing the same project including one in Texas(!) …amazing!! So inspiring to see these amazing art projects. Thank you so much to everyone at Blue Manatee. 
 
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